Saturday, September 05, 2009

Deputy premier George Smitherman is all but ready to announce he will run for mayor of Toronto, sources close to the politician say.

"It's a lock, he's running," one source confirmed this week.

Another Smitherman operative, ready to build a campaign team, says "a rainbow of political stripes" is urging Smitherman to take on the flagging Mayor David Miller in next year's elections. (emphasis mine)

Coyne is wrong about Layton. The NDP's raison d'etre is to advance the interests of its constituencies. If Layton moves away from this and votes with the government without a deal, the party is in trouble. So, he is in a box. He has to have a deal that advances its constituency's interests, or he has to vote against the government. It doesn't make sense to someone like Coyne, but internally, it is Layton's only move.

I also think Coyne is whistling past the graveyard, to an extent, over the fate of a coalition. The Liberals are hungry for power and so, if their numbers plus the NDP add up to a majority, they might go for it. However, I could very well be wrong about that. If the blue Liberals have their way (as they do in virtually every instance), there will be no coalition, even (and especially) if it is with the NDP. They would rather see Harper run the country than have Jack Layton in the cabinet.

If the Liberals + the NDP = majority, the Liberals already have a plurality -- otherwise, the Dippers would have to outnumber the Bloc, and that probably isn't happening.

What's more interesting is if it's like in 2006 -- when 102 Liberals plus 29 New Democrats outnumbered 125 Conservatives.

And that's actually the most likely outcome of an election right now -- more Grits, fewer Dippers and Tories, but a Tory plurality, and no-one can govern w/o the Bloc supporting or at least abstaining.